The Forgotten Room

Edward Delaveaux never recovered from the double loss of his son and his wife. He spent the rest of his life and fortune in seclusion, trying one scheme after the other to contact his family on the other side. He finally died himself, nearly destitute, in 1912. Dark Gables remained shuttered and unoccupied until Lux relocated from Boston to Newport and purchased it. Ever since Lux took possession of the mansion, however, rumors had circulated that, on certain stormy nights, the ghost of Ernestine Delaveaux could be seen roaming this long, extravagantly appointed corridor, holding a linen handkerchief and calling her son’s name.

Logan had never seen her. Nor had he spoken to anyone who had. But the legend persisted nevertheless.

Now he stopped before a large wooden door, windowless and gleaming, set into the wall to his left. It bore a brief legend:

382

W. STRACHEY

K. MYKOLOS

Logan paused a moment, then knocked. A female voice from beyond immediately called out, “Come in.”

Logan entered. The room he found himself in was fairly small, evidently an outer office, judging by the open door in the far wall leading to a much larger room. Nevertheless, the bookshelves here were stuffed full of technical journals, textbooks, boxed and labeled manuscripts; the lone desk was covered with notated papers and monographs. And yet the crowded space managed to look orderly rather than messy. The room had no windows, and there were no pictures or photos on the walls, but there were half a dozen glass frames full of butterflies: large and small, some monochromatic, others as iridescent as a peacock.

A woman in her midtwenties sat at the desk, fingers resting on a workstation keyboard. She had short jet-black hair, an upturned nose, and — although she was slender — was possessed of a rounded, dimpled chin that reminded Logan of Betty Boop. He recalled seeing her in passing at di

“You’re Kimberly Mykolos?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “But that’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it? Please call me Kim.”

“Kim it shall be.”

She smiled. “And I’m terribly afraid I know who you are.”

Logan gave a melodramatic sigh. “In that case, would you mind if I sat down?”

“I would insist.”

Logan began to sit down when he caught sight of a brief Latin quotation, framed simply in black and set upon the wall beside the desk: Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. He froze.

“What’s wrong?” the woman asked. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“An occupational hazard in my line of work,” Logan replied. “But it isn’t that.” He sat down and pointed at the framed quotation. “Virgil, Aeneid. Book One, line 203.”

“That’s a remarkable bit of erudition to have at one’s fingertips.”

“I’m no savant. It’s just that I have the same quotation hanging over my desk.” And he quoted: “ ‘Perhaps some day it will be pleasant to remember even this.’ ”

Mykolos raised her eyebrows. “I guess that means we’re going to be the best of friends.”

“Maybe so. I like butterflies, too.”

“I don’t just like them. I’m passionate about them. Have been ever since I was a kid. When I’m not working, I’m out collecting. Look at this one.” She pointed to a relatively small butterfly in the nearest frame: brown with black eyelets and orange-colored terminal bands on its wings. “A Mitchell’s satyr. Very rare. I caught this at age thirteen, before it was considered endangered.”

“Beautiful.” Logan looked from the butterfly back to Mykolos. “You say you know who I am?”

“I remember seeing you on a PBS documentary. It was about an excavation of the tomb of a very ancient pharaoh — the first pharaoh, if I remember right. You stood out because of your occupation.” She frowned. “They had an unusual word for it. An…an…”

“Enigmalogist,” Logan completed the sentence for her. He decided that Betty Boop was an unfair comparison. This woman’s chin more closely resembled Claudette Colbert’s.

“Yes, enigmalogist.”

“Well, I’m glad you saw the documentary. It saves me a lot of time in introductions.”

She glanced at him curiously. “Are you here to investigate the Lady’s Walk?”

“Unfortunately not. I’ve been asked by the board of directors to look into the death of Willard Strachey.”

Mykolos’s eyes slowly drifted down toward her desk. “I was afraid of that,” she said in a very different tone.

“Ms. Mykolos, I know this must be difficult for you. I’ll try to keep my questions as brief as possible. But you were as close to Dr. Strachey as anybody. I hope you’ll understand why it’s necessary I speak with you.”

She nodded wordlessly.

“First, tell me a little about yourself. How you came to Lux, how you came to work for Strachey.”

Mykolos paused to take a sip from a cup of tea that sat on the desk. “I don’t know how much you know of the way Lux goes about hiring its staff. They’re quite selective.”

“That’s probably an understatement.”

“It’s not unlike the way the Brits recruit potential spies to MI6. Lux has talent spotters at several of the best universities. If they see somebody who shows a certain kind of promise, along with the right temperament and intellectual curiosity — Lux has entire profiles for the spotters to use — then the foundation is contacted. An inquiry is convened and, if the results are positive and there’s a suitable opening, an offer is made. In my case, about four years ago I received my MSE in computer science from MIT. It was my plan to go on directly for my doctorate. Instead, I won the Advanced Computing Society’s Obfuscated Software Award. And then I got a visit from a Lux recruitment officer.” She shrugged. “And here I am.”

“What was your specialty at MIT?” Logan asked.

“Strategic software design.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s a rather new field. It deals with how to protect programs from today’s threat-filled digital environment: worms, tu

“And were you hired specifically to be Dr. Strachey’s assistant?”

Mykolos nodded. “His previous assistant had to leave to become a full-time mother.” She paused. “Fu

“I’ve often wondered about that.” Logan sat back in the chair. “But were you a good fit for the job? With Strachey, I mean. His specialty was relational databases, after all.”

Mykolos hesitated. “I’m not sure how familiar you are with them. They’re much more powerful and versatile than flat file or hierarchical databases. And Strachey’s database management system, Parallax, was a revelation when it appeared. He was a phenomenal coder. Really phenomenal. The language he wrote it in, C, is tight to begin with, but he was able to make each line do triple duty. Still, Parallax was…well, a product of its time. Lux was looking for a way to market it to a larger, less demanding market.”

“And that meant bringing in fresh blood.”

“These days, programs that large corporations once paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for in site licenses don’t necessarily need to be shelved as they age. They can be repurposed for the use of smaller companies that will pay a lot less per seat, but whose needs are more limited. But that also means, in effect, releasing the program into the wild — and so it needs to be protected by antitampering technology. That’s where I came in.”

“And the result?”

She glanced at him. “Sorry?”

“Well, a person like Strachey, nearing the end of his career, might become resentful…if he felt his life’s work was being ‘repurposed’ by someone young, lean, and hungry.”